Sunday, 13 July 2014

What is Norwich Pride?

Norwich Pride is the celebration from the LGBT community for everyone.

It is not just for LGBT people – we want the whole city to join in the celebrations and we encourage people to bring their friends, families and colleagues. It’s a day when everyone can relax, dress-up, dress-down and be themselves.

Photograph by Matthew Dartford

We want to live in a city where everyone can feel safe and proud to be themselves.

Having a vibrant and visible Pride is an essential way for Norwich to show that we are a safe, tolerant, diverse city.

Let’s turn Norwich into a rainbow!

The rainbow flag is the international symbol of LGBT Pride and an important part of our campaign is to get as many civic buildings, businesses and organisations in Norwich to fly the rainbow flag and show they value and respect their LGBT staff, clients, customers, student, patients etc. We also want shops to do rainbow displays and ordinary people to put Pride posters in their windows. We want the last Saturday in July to be the most colourful and vibrant day in the city’s calender.

In 2014 we are celebrating the 6th Norwich Pride.

Thousands of people will be in the city on 26th July 2014. When we did a survey in 2009 to see what people would want from a Pride celebration, we were amazed to get comments from people saying that they wouldn’t go on a march because “people might see me”. There was also anxiety that Norwich was a nice city to be LGBT if you went about your lives quietly and a Pride celebration might “stir things up”. It was if it was “ok to be gay but not too gay”. The first Norwich Pride was amazing – 3000 people turned up for the Parade and we got loads of fantastic feedback telling us how much more confident they felt to be themselves. Every year, that confidence has grown and we are proud to celebrate the 6th Norwich Pride this year, turning Norwich into a rainbow!